“Best guess?”
Melting the ice caps suddenly could swamp the world under two hundred feet of water. If they have some form of nuclear fusion, they could heat it up to the point where the entire Continent melts. Instead of a natural, gradual erosion over time like has happened in past millennia, we would be inundated with more water in the oceans than exists in every river, lake, and inland sea combined. At the very least every coastal city would be destroyed.
“Well, that’s no good.”
Threat warning! Evasive maneuvers.
I don’t wait to find out what it is, just kick in the Emdrive and floor it. Three small drones each the size of a prop plane shoot out of the whole firing those green chemical lasers at me.
The blasts crisscross the space I was just in. I pull hard over, firing an IP cannon at the first one. The blue energy just fizzles against the surface as I pull a tight turn and kick in the jets. Snow erupts in a fireball the size of a house followed by a gout of steam rising into the sky.
“Are they—” I grunt from the g’s, "made of the same material?”
Affirmative.
Spinning onto my back I bracket one with the Particle beam and open fire. The hyper-accelerated particles flash to life ionizing the air as they smash into the thing at near light speed. The first burst lights it up and the second cuts off a wing, sending the drone tumbling to the snow below.
“Track the location. I want as much of their metal as I can get!”
Will do.
The other two drones drop in behind me like fighters going in for the kill. The laser cannons slung on the underside of the front of their carriage makes them look like mandibles. I drop down low, skimming the snow. As soon as they match altitude, I roll spreading my arms out wide to catch the wind and pull up as more beams slash through the air where I just was.
“Kinetic lance!” I dive back down lining up the one on the right. There’s a quick kick as the lance discharges and smashes the targeted drone right into the snow. It digs a furrow in the snow and ice before sliding to a stop.
“Unlock the sword of doom.”
Have you trademarked the name?
“Make a note,” I say as I bring the blade to play. The last drone pops up, letting out a blast of white energy to turn sharper than it normally does. I still fly right by it and swing for the fences. The blade screeches along the alien metal, shredding the exterior before hitting something vital and the drone explodes in my face. The force knocks me back. Shrapnel stops dead on my shielding, but the concussive shockwave slams me into the snow with a grunt.
“Status?”
A list of systems flashes by my HUD, nothing in red, just a few subsystems rebooting.
We are good.
“Yes we are,” I say with a smile. Pulling myself up I shrug off the bruises from the rough landing. “Any more threats?”
Negative. Radar and thermal still do not pick these things up. I have to use air disturbance and audio to ‘see’ them.
“Understood. Okay, just to be on the safe side why don’t we stay low and take a look.”
I walk over to the crater. The snow around the edge has melted and refrozen as ice but I manage to keep my feet.
“You know, it just occurred to me that we could have a drone of our own. A little reconnaissance drone, maybe a micro ZPFM and Emjet. Like a little VTOL?”
Note made. We could attach it to your back and launch with the grenade launchers’ compressed air like a catapult.
“I like it!”
I will work on the design.
I peer over the edge again, this time keeping my head as close to the side as possible.
“Epic, stealth mode.”
The HUD flips from red to blue as my kinetic shields reconfigure for dispersal. I’m not even sure what these things use as sensors but there’s no reason to take a chance.
“I still can’t see anything but the heat plume. We’re going to have to go down there.”
Agreed.
I glance up at the gray sky wishing I could see the stars. We’re far too south for Artemis to come into play, but it would be nice.
Kate is calling.
“Hey,” I say.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, they’re drilling into the ice sheet. Epic thinks it’s to melt it.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” she says, “Need help?”
“Yeah but it’s negative forty degrees. So, stay there unless I need an evac, kay?”
“Chilly. Call if you need us.”
“Will do.” I cut the line just as Carlos asks how I’m doing. Poor guy, he’s back five seconds and I run out on him. I’ll make it up to him… as soon as I’ve made it up to Luke. I have a lot of making up to do!
“We’re going in.” I slide over the edge and let gravity do the work, keeping energy emissions to minimum I spread my arms and legs out creating the most drag as we hit the thick spot of smoke.
“Epic, the second you see something hard, flip the shields to max.”
Affirmative.
The thick black smoke obscures everything. A raucous roar emanates from below and gets louder as we fall farther.
“I think I see something…”
I do not detect—
“Full power!” I flip my feet down and kick the Emdrive on. They whine to slow my descent. The smoke vanishes and a pot of molten rock as wide as the crater appears below me. The temp spikes to over a thousand degrees. I’d like to think the suit could dip a toe and be okay… but I wouldn’t.
“What the hell?”
It appears to be using the bedrock under this part of the ice to create an artificial volcano.
The lip of the pot has several control pods, and spider-like legs are coming out from all around it digging underneath it and dumping the rock into the pot.
Once they have collected enough molten rock, I presume they will then inject it into the crust… causing an instant volcano.
“How the hell do we even stop this thing? It’s frigging huge.”
We need to lure it back to the surface where we can shoot at the vulnerable underside. I would suggest an EMP followed by HE grenades and Particle Beam bursts.
“Charge the EMP. Let’s do it!”
The high-pitched whine of the ZPFM charging to detonate fills my ears. I take the thirty seconds I have to record as many details as possible on this drone. Another trick in their bag of death. What’s next, digging to the Earth’s core?
EMP is ready.
“Do it!” There’s a ka-chunk as the EMP launches from my shoulder compartment. The spinning dime sized ZPFM glows brilliantly as it falls toward the molten sludge below. Then it detonates.
“Unload the HE, now.”
The puff puff of my grenade launcher echoes in the silent cavern followed by the boom of detonation. Rocks fall from the wall as does some ice, crashing down into the cauldron… nothing happens. It keeps digging, filling the pot with more rock and ore.
“Epic…?”
It does not appear to have noticed us.
“No, really?” The drone doesn’t even miss a beat. Well, it was a long shot. What’s their plan? Dig out a bunch of molten rock and…
Molten rock… molten…
“I have a really cool idea.”
I am all ears.
“Put me through to Kate.” I kick in the Emdrive and launch straight up through the black smoke and back into the white haze of the Antarctic sky.
“Go for Kate,” her alto chimes in my ear.
“Get suited up for forty below, beautiful. You, Tessa, and Glacier. Okay?”
“Not going well?” she asks.
“It will when you’re here!”
They must have been waiting for my call because five minutes later there’s a series of pops and they’re all here. Kate has a stylish white parka with a big furry collar and ski hat along with goggles and a mask. Tessa looks almost identical except she has a black parka. Glacier is the only one not in anything un
usual.
“Are you okay?” I ask Monica. She’s in her usual blue and white outfit that is hardly suited for cold weather.
She shrugs. “I went into the kitchen freezer for a few minutes and I didn’t feel a thing. The chef said it was twenty below inside. I figured if I didn’t feel it at minus twenty, I wouldn’t feel it at forty.”
“Fair enough,” I say. “Okay, Kate, you stay back for emergency evac. Glacier, I want you to build as big a snow and ice drift as you can on the edge of this hole—”
“Wow,” Tessa interrupts. “That’s a lot of black smoke. What’s down there?”
“Epic thinks they’re trying to form an artificial volcano. They’ve got a drone down there that looks like a giant bowl filled with molten rock. I’m worried they’re too hot, so I thought we’d cool them down some,” I say with a grin.
“Sounds good, but how?” Tessa asks.
“Glacier, I want you to blast as much snow and ice into a drift at the edge of the ledge… where the black smoke is.” She nods understanding.
“Tessa, I want you to use your telekinesis to compress the snow and ice for as long as you can then throw it down there. Can you do it?”
“Does a bear sh—”
“Yes or no will suffice,” I interrupt her.
“Yes,” she says with a grin.
“Here we go,” Monica says as she lifts her hands up. Light the color of old ice emanates from her hands, then her whole body. The snow shifts suddenly. A wind like a knife cuts through the area and snow swirls toward the giant hole in the ice.
Tessa puts her hand to her temple in a dramatic show of concentration. Her powers rarely manifest themselves visually, but I can see her stance change as she grunts from the exertion. Despite the cold a bead of sweat breaks out on her temple, freezing almost instantly.
“Amelia?” Kate calls my name.
“Mhmm?” I don’t look at her just focus on the massive amount of snow that Tessa is holding back from falling in, while compressing it into a gigantic ice cube. Normally, the act of compressing it would convert it to steam from the heat generated by molecular agitation. Not unlike the way a microwave works. But, at forty degrees below zero, a hot cup of coffee will freeze to crystals before hitting the ground.
“Out of curiosity, do you know what will happen when that much ice hits molten rock? Because I don’t…”
“I know exactly what will happen.”
I don’t need to be an empath to know she’s showing a great deal of patience with me. I can almost hear her sigh when she speaks.
“It’s going to explode, isn’t it?”
“Like Independence Day.”
“The movie or the day?” Tessa asks without looking at me.
“Both!”
“I should have known. Are we safe here?” Kate asks.
“Once it happens, start porting them out of here. If I’m right it’s going to bring the drone up here where I can deal with it. Robotech style.” I pat my arm where the mass driver is installed.
“So, we’re not here to fight it?” she asks.
I shake my head. “This terrain’s too treacherous. If you were knocked out we’re hours from the nearest hospital and anyone I carried would freeze to death before I could save them. Even if the Emjet were here, it would be a hard evac.”
She doesn’t say anything. That’s okay, I’m focusing on the numbers. Tessa is doing a marvelous job of compressing the snow; she’s up to almost a metric ton.
“Just a little more.”
“I’ve… got… this,” she grunts. A trickle of blood winds its way down her upper lip from her nose.
“Tessa?” I ask.
She just grunts in response, pushing forward with a growl she takes a step. Epic estimates 1.5 tons… and Tessa has it the size of a small car. Wow.
“Okay… I’m all out,” she says. Her body vibrates with the strain of keeping it together.
“Drop it!”
She screams, dropping to her knees as she mimes pushing the ice down. The giant cube of ice doesn’t just fall, it flies down the hole.
“Kate!” She vanishes. Appears next to Tessa and then disappears again. Glacier points her hands at the hole and blue beams strike out covering the top in a thick sheet of ice.
“That should help.”
Kate pops into existence next to me. Grabs Monica and vanishes.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six…
The ground shakes. I kick in the Emdrive and take to the air. Snow vibrates around the hole and then…
A massive geyser of expanding water vapor shoots out of the top followed by molten rock bursting into steam then freezing before it falls to the ground.
“Well, they got their volcano.”
Based on the continuing tremors I would estimate that the drone is returning to the surface to find a new place to start.
“Spin up the mass driver.” The ZPFM whines with exertion as power is tasked from it in the order of almost one-hundred joules. A huge step down from the near three thousand I was pumping into it… but then if I fired that thing again I would likely die. I’m lucky as it is.
I land a few hundred feet away and take the position. The suit locks up as Epic takes control of my arm and aims it like a cannon.
A thin spidery leg slams into the ground from below the lip of the ledge, cracking the ice from the impact. Another leg follows a second later.
“As soon as the main body is visible I want you to fire.”
Affirmative.
Two more legs on the side lift its incredible mass up out of the hole. I wasn’t wrong about the bowl shape. There’s a massive crackdown one side where the explosion actually hurt the thing. Excellent. Under the bowl is a disk shape where the legs come out of and if I had to guess, that’s the control center.
“Fire!” The suit shakes as the first round leaves the barrel igniting the air as it passes through at twenty-one times the speed of sound. Even at twenty-four ounces the ball still hits with enough force to obliterate its target. Light flashes triggering the polarization in my faceplate protecting my eyes.
Should I keep firing?
“Give it a second. Let’s see if—”
The view clears, and the drone is entirely above ground now. There isn’t even a mark on the surface where I hit.
“No way.”
I do not understand how it could survive such a hit.
“Me either buddy, but let’s not throw good money after bad. The sword will have to do the job.” Epic unlocks the suit and I can move again. There’s got to be a sweet spot between a hundred joules and three-thousand where I can penetrate this alloy and not kill myself doing it.
I fetch the blade from my back and take to the sky. I push the thrust over three hundred. The distance between us vanishes as I swing the blade for the first leg. The sword misses…
“What?” The leg pulled in close at the last second—then fires off like a cannon. Tons of mass crash through my shields and hit me like a truck. The suit spins wildly out of control and I end up eating a snow bank.
“Ow.”
The HUD flickers as a list of systems flash amber and offline. Including the kinetic manipulators.
“Epic, what the heck?”
It moved unreasonably fast. Amelia, move!
I fire off the jets, grunting from the g’s and trying to remember to clench my stomach to help me deal with them until the kinetic manipulators are back online.
“Epic, keep me from killing myself.”
Restricting speed and agility. Amelia, I think we should withdraw. Perhaps a joint air strike by multiple governments could succeed.
“Uh-huh, sure. In nine hours? Maybe? We stop it, or it isn’t stopped.” At least the sword is locked to my hand, even with tracking I don’t think I’d ever find it in this mess.
I come back around in a shallow turn. Turrets pop out from the apex of each leg. Chemic
al lasers, of course.
“Epic go to rapid fire on the grenades. Do what you can.”
The puff puff of my launcher is his only response. High explosive grenades detonate across the body like ripples in a pond. I take advantage of the distraction to zap one of the lasers with a particle beam burst.
Manipulators are back online.
“Punch it!” I smile with glee as we accelerate past Mach One. I climb up to a thousand feet before I arc around. Green lasers slash at the air behind me. I dive down and pull up a few feet above the ground, blade out, to slash the drone as I fly by.
Amelia, abort!
Too late. It herded me. A leg whips around slamming into my side and I let out a scream of agony as the suit spins in the air before slapping the ground like a wet noodle and sliding to a stop.
The HUD screams at me with all the systems that are offline.
“Epic…” I cough out blood. “This isn’t fun anymore. Call Kate.”
I manage to pull myself to my knees. At least I can scan the immediate area and see if… a crack of lightning splits the sky. A bolt so white and powerful it strikes the snow which explodes in a fountain of steam.
When the wind clears the air, I see it…
“Epic, am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”
If not, you have successfully created the first AI with visual hallucinations.
A six-foot, wooden hafted spear sticks nose first out of the ice. I look up. Sure enough, I see his sandaled feet first.
The Protector drops out of the sky like a bullet, slamming into the ground next to the spear. Bronze armor gleaming in the Antarctic sun, he pulls the spear out and points at the drone.
“Hit it high,” his incredibly deep voice yells.
“Right, on it,” I yell back.
Flight systems are at thirty-seven percent efficiency.
“Fix it. We’re going airborne. The Protector is back, baby!” I launch into the air. I slap the sword back on its sheath. Clearly, I don’t want to get close again. I fire off the particle beam to get its attention.
The Protector hurls his spear at the main body of the drone, charging in right behind it. A leg whips out to hit him while chemical lasers fire off at me.
He takes the hit on the shield, rolling over the leg and launching up to the middle. The spear slams into the disk shape, blasting a two-inch hole in the nearly indestructible alloy. He grabs the spear and rips it out, then stabs it back in making another hole.
Alien Arsenal Page 3